Wednesday, 4 November 2015

"The opposition from businesses on the grounds of their cost is rather strange, because it's not occupiers that end up taking the financial hit. Rather, it's land owners. This is the so called "incidence" of a tax, who ends up shouldering it"

Given that a much higher proportion of residential land is owner occupied compared to commercial land, opposition to higher taxation of such is understandable until you observe that the highest value land is not majority owner occupied (London is majority rented). A very small but vocal group of residential landowners would lose out.

I see what you mean now. However the few rich residential landowners in London have the influence of their riches and the many not so rich residential landowners outside London have the influence of their votes.